It’s a record that can only be broken in Rio de Janeiro. A samba dancer has worn the smallest scrap of clothing ever in a Carnival parade. The O Globo newspaper said model Dani Sperle sported a sparkly silver headdress, a necklace, matching arm bands — and nothing else but a 3 centimeter (1.2-inch) long patch of cloth.
All in front of 80,000 Sambadrome specators early Monday morning.
That breaks the record set last year by Viviane Castro, whose covering was all of 4-centimeters (1.5 inches) long.
Viviane Castro paraded nearly nude early Saturday with the U.S. leader’s visage on her right thigh. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s face was on her left thigh.
Castro’s stomach read “for sale” – a message she said represented the sale of Brazil’s Amazon to the U.S. Many here fear the U.S. wants to control the resource-rich region.
Castro appeared in last year’s Rio Carnival parade wearing nothing but a strategically placed piece of tape 1 1/2-inches (4-centimeters) long , violating a little-enforced nudity rule and drawing a penalty for her samba group.
She wore the same patch this year.
Judges last year penalized Castro for violating nudity limits. There’s no word yet if Sperle’s samba school will also lose points.
Join The Sexy Street Party Parade
Sure, you can watch Rio’s Carnival from the Samb—dromo, but parading is where the fun is.
The number of foreign tourists participating in Rio’s Carnival parade has increased dramatically in the last few years.
“Joining the Carnival parade is definitely one of my top 3 experiences in life!” affirms Casey A. from San Diego, who participated in the 2007 parade in Rio. “Everything is so grandiose and exuberant, and you feel like the center of attention.”
“It’s like the difference between going to Pamplona and running with the bulls, as opposed to just watching. Obviously, the risk at Carnival is a lot lower,” compares Josh M. from Wisconsin, who participated earlier this year.
Tour operators have started sneaking tourists into the middle of the thousands of samba school paraders. This is so they are not identified by the Carnival judges, who often penalize samba schools for marching with participants who are not singing or dancing according to the song.
This rule does not discriminate against foreigners, but against anyone who is not fully participating. To make the tourists inconspicuous, tour operators have been forming small groups of a dozen participants and mixing them in with a large group of Brazilians.
“We teach our clients a few tricks to blend in, so they don’t look like tourists.
First we teach them to wave and throw kisses to the crowd. We give them bubble gum so they appear to be singing, and of course we make sure they learn a few dance moves,” reveals Mauricio Bastos of RioCharm Travel Services, one of the tour operators offering Carnival parade packages.
“It’s amazing how ecstatic everyone gets afterwards.”
The Carnival experience starts at the hotel, where participants don the Carnival costume, usually something large and sparkly. Once dressed, members of the group meet at a subway station in Copacabana and head towards the Samb—dromo, a mile long stadium in the shape of a corridor, where the Carnival competition is held.
There participants meet the rest of their samba school and wait for their turn while sampling caipirinhas and other traditional beverages. Fireworks go off to indicate it’s time for the next samba school to go in the Samb—dromo. In military style, 4,000 or so participants from one samba school get in line and wait for their turn to enter.
Once inside the Samb—dromo, participants are encouraged to have fun, and reminded to not do anything touristy, such taking photos or greeting famous observers in the VIP balconies. Each of the 12 schools has 80 minutes to move their school through the Samb—dromo. Once members exit the Samb—dromo, they can buy tickets to watch the other schools parade, or they can continue on to Carnival parties happening throughout the city.
Participants get to keep their costumes, which many think of as the ultimate Rio souvenir.
“How to actually participate in the Carnival parade is rarely mentioned in travel guidebooks,” states Cristiano Nogueira, author of a travel guide to Rio de Janeiro. “We added parade coverage in the second edition of “Rio For Partiers.” Now at Carnival time we get a flood of email enquiries from interested travelers.”
The dates for the 2009 Rio Carnival are February 21-28.
Viva La Soul Of Rio
Rio de Janeiro was wrapping up its famed Carnival parades in the early hours of Tuesday, after two days of effervescent partying that attracted celebrity guests.
Dancing beauties wearing little more than strategically placed sequins and broad smiles led choreographed troupes and elaborate floats from the city’s samba schools past 70,000 people in Rio’s purpose-built Sambodrome stadium.
The event marked the climax of four days of pre-Lent celebrations. Street festivities were to continue through Tuesday night, however, to the delight of locals and the hundreds of thousands of tourists getting down to the drum rhythms.
Several stars were spotted over the two days of the parades, including Brazilian top model Gisele Bundchen and US actors Kevin Spacey and Matthew McConaughey, according to the press. All had hefty security details to keep the avid Brazilian media at bay.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva did his own star turn at the first night of the parades on Sunday. It was the first time he has turned out for the partying in Rio since taking power in 2003.
For all the flesh and fantasy on display, the parades were also a serious competition between Rio’s 12 top samba schools.
Themes this year included environmental protection and the technology of the future. Other elements being judged were choreography, harmony — and timing. Each school had 82 minutes to herd its dancing, singing cast of thousands through the 700-meter (half-mile) long stadium.
The winning school — which receives adulation throughout Brazil — will be known late Wednesday.
While Rio received the greatest attention, similarly lusty parades were held in other cities, with the biggest in Salvador de Bahia, Recife and Sao Paulo.
At the same time, informal street parties and innumerable balls were taking place.
To reign in the risk of HIV during the licentious period, the government was distributing 59 million free condoms.
Police in Rio also stepped up their security — though not enough to protect nearly 100 foreigners who were victims of robbers, many of them armed, in the lead-up to Carnival.
In the worst incidents, two hostels in the city were hit and all their guests held hostage while gangs stole money, iPods and cameras.
The other sour note struck on Carnival’s eve was the growing impact of the global economic crisis.
Embraer, the country’s aircraft manufacturer, announced it was sacking more than 4,000 of its workers last Thursday. That was the biggest lay-off yet declared by Brazil’s increasingly gloomy industrial sector. General Motors Brazil and mining giant Vale had already said they were shedding 800 and 1,300 jobs, respectively.
“Unemployment is getting worse, but Carnival is acting like a safety valve,” a domestic worker, Rosa Soares, said as she took part in Sunday’s Carnival parades.
65 Million Condoms
Carnival is condom season in Brazil, where the government said Friday it will hand out 65 million free prophylactics to partiers this month.
It’s an increase of 20 million from what the government hands out each month the rest of the year in Brazil, which has aggressive anti-HIV and -AIDS efforts praised by the United Nations.
“In addition to the 45 million condoms we already distribute on a monthly basis, we’re increasing that amount this month so there can be enough condoms distributed at all the parties and events that take place during Carnival,” said Mariangela Simao, director of the national HIV-AIDS program in the capital, Brasilia.
All told, the country plans to spend roughly $36 million to purchase 1.2 billion condoms this year — making it the world’s No. 1 government buyer, Simao said. About 560 million free condoms will be available nationwide, or around three for each of Brazil’s 191 million people.
The prophylactics — distributed to state agencies who then hand them out — come in purple wrappers emblazoned with the message “Always use a condom!”
Church officials in Brazil, home to the world’s largest Roman Catholic population, have opposed the condom program.
Also Friday, the Health Ministry hosted a “Mature Woman’s Block Party” in Rio de Janeiro to highlight its latest target demographic: women over the age of 50, about 70 percent of whom do not use condoms, according to the ministry.
Health officials said AIDS cases have tripled among that group in the last decade, from 3.7 cases per 100,000 people to 11.6.
“We senior citizens are still sexually active nowadays, so these types of campaigns are very important,” said Ana Leila Goncalves, a 62-year-old grandmother who took part in the event.
Earlier this month, the health ministry reported it would spend $500,000 this year on 15 million small packets of personal lubricant, which it said helps keep condoms from breaking.
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